Egypt Air 804 goes missing. EDIT: Debris found

This is a discussion on Egypt Air 804 goes missing. EDIT: Debris found within Shifting gears, part of the Around the Corner category; Reports coming in now state that the Egyptian army has found debris confirmed as belonging to the plane. Also, in ...

Reports coming in now state that the Egyptian army has found debris confirmed as belonging to the plane. Also, in a very important development, AV Herald confirms that the following ACARS data was received form the aircraft.

If the ACARS transmission is true, then it is indeed of the toughest failures for the flight crew to cope with. In flight fire/smoke is extremely dangerous and the crew would have had to find and isolate the system from where the fire originated. Smoke inside cockpit is any pilot's worst nightmare, in worst scenarios, the A320 can be manually put into Emergency electrical configuration so that it shuts off almost every thing and only the basic required computers are running to manage flight controls and other things.

Any smoke/fire from an aircraft component does take time to spread and there are ample warnings for it, wonder what could have happened so rapidly that the crew did not even get a change to declare a pan-pan or a may day.

Immediately as the plane went missing, the Egyptian authorities have been suggesting a terrorist angle. Was this to divert attention from known issues with aircraft maintenance or safety training?

its remarkable how many conspiracy theories pop up even in the first 24-48 hours of these sort of tragic events.

It is very unlikely that planes suffer any catastrophic events while in cruise other then blowing up or similar. So I would say, and just about all commentators/experts sort of agreed along similar lines that it seemed more likely to be a terrorist angle then anything else druing the first 24-36 hours. That's all in my opinion, just statistics, nothing else

It's the same with the huge outcry about whether this plane could not be found. When planes crash in the sea, even with a relevant good last known position it usually takes 24 - 72 hours before the first debris is spotted.

It's very hard to spot debris in a open body of water such as a sea or an ocean. Near impossible from ships, unless you are more or less on top of it. you need trained observers. yes, plenty of commercial flights over this particular part, but they would see nothing from cruising altitude. You need to get spotter planes, with trained staff in the area to have a good chance. you might get lucky, e.g. a passing vessel that actually saw the crash, but no such luck in this case.

Next they will be trying to find the location of the Black Boxes. And again that is going to take some time. Nothing unusual, but every hour that goes by without them we will see more conspiracy theories.

And when the black boxed have been found and verified/analysed the results will still be interpreted differently and still we'll see some more conspiracy theories. Sad, but that's how it goes in public media these days.

i can only imagine what it does to the family and friends of those who perished. Having to wait for answers must be awfull. Having different explanation thrown at you from every angle and every place on earth via twitter, TV, Facebook must be worse.

First 4 are self explanatory. But what is intriguing is that almost all faults are on the F/O side of the cockpit.

F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT is a Flight Control Spoiler Elevator Computer 3 fault. This computer controls the spoilers number 1 and 2. Five spoilers are installed on each wing. From the wing root to wing tip they are numbered 1 through 5. Numbers 2 through 5 provide roll control. And 2.3 & 4 provide speed brakes. If a SEC fails the spoiler it controls is automatically retracted (if extended) and that spoiler is deactivated. There is no reversion to other computers. This is not a very serious fault. Almost no control would be lost with SEC 3 failure.

AUTO FLT FCU2 FAULT: FCU is the flight control computer. There are 2 FCU's in the A320. FCU1 is the captain side and FCU2 is the F/O side. Loss of a single FCU results in the other FCU taking over. Losing both FCUs means that Autothrottle, Auto Pilot and Flight director all are lost. All the FCU controls are inoperative and barometer reference automatically reverts to 1013. In this case only the FCU2 was lost, so the captains FCU must've taken over.

Only 2 of those messages are related to actual piloting. Also note that these messages span a period of several minutes. That precludes a catastrophic event resulting in instant structural failure and breakup. The smooth nature of the initial turns suggests that even if there was a fire or explosion, it was a small one getting out of hand, rather than a more sudden one. But then again if there was a fire, why turn 360 over sea instead of heading towards the nearest available runway? If there was any form of sabotage in the cockpit, would the descent be smooth like that?

PS: I may be wrong about the ACARS interpretation. Can RVD/coolboy007 clear this up please?

Would any of these message also show up on the EICAS or whatever Airbus calls it. Or put differently what would the pilots have seen on their displays. Same messages or less?
Going by the description I would have thought most if not all?
Thanks
Jeroen

Would any of these message also show up on the EICAS or whatever Airbus calls it. Or put differently what would the pilots have seen on their displays. Same messages or less?
Going by the description I would have thought most if not all?
Thanks
Jeroen

Yes, the ECAM would have displayed all of these messages almost in the same manner as ACARS. The FCU and SEC warning would have been as it is. Same for the LAVATORY SMOKE warning. FAULTAVNCS will be displayed for smoke in avionics compartment.

Egyptian army has found debris from the plane and has released some pictures. Absolutely heart breaking. I cannot imagine what the families of the passengers must be going through. May God give them the strength to go through all of this.

ACARS messages have been confirmed as authentic by Airbus themselves. As of now, it looks as if a fire brought down the aircraft. Although the terrorist angle still exists, chances are that it wasn't a terrorist attack.

The pilot of the doomed EgyptAir flight spoke to air traffic control in Egypt for several minutes just before the plane crashed, a French television station has claimed.

M6 said that the pilot told Cairo control about the smoke which had engulfed parts of the aircraft and decided to make an emergency descent to try to clear the fumes.

This account directly contradicts the official claim that there was no distress call from the plane.M6’s story, quoting unnamed French aviation officials, was not confirmed by the French air accident investigation agency, the BEA.

No such information had been passed by the Egyptian authorities to three BEA investigators who had flown to Cairo to take part in the official inquiry, the agency said.

M6 said that the pilot of the Egyptair A320 had "a conversation several minutes long" with Cairo air traffic control after the plane ran into difficulties in the early hours of Thursday morning.

As a result of the conversation, the pilot decided to make an “emergency descent”, depressurising the cabin, in an attempt to clear smoke fumes which had invaded the front of the aircraft.

Just after the Paris-Cairo flight vanished on Thursday, there were contradictory claims about distress calls or signals. An airline spokesman initially said that there had been a distress call from the airbus. This statement was denied by the Egyptian military and withdrawn by EgyptAir.

The source, The Independent, is a respectable British news source (I'd say newspaper, but I believe that market economics finally stopped them producing a physical printed edition) and not at all a rag. Still, they are reporting the French TV station.

Quote:

As a result of the conversation, the pilot decided to make an “emergency descent”, depressurising the cabin, in an attempt to clear smoke fumes which had invaded the front of the aircraft.

Hope to hear from our pilots if this could, would or should be done, and if it would even be effective.

The source, The Independent, is a respectable British news source. --------Hope to hear from our pilots if this could, would or should be done, and if it would even be effective.

Fire in the air is one of the most dangerous situations that an aircrew can be faced with. Without proper and timely intervention by the flight crew, a fire on board an aircraft can lead to the catastrophic loss of that aircraft within a very short space of time. Fires allowed to spread into the aircraft’s overhead area may become uncontrollable in as few as 8–10 minutes. An aircraft has as few as 15–20 minutes to get on the ground if the fire is not extinguished because a fire can very quickly render the aircraft uncontrollable by burning through important flight control surface wiring and actuators.

The procedure in case of a fire is common to most aircrafts: Immediately put on oxygen masks and verify that the regulator is set to 100 percent. And go for an immediate descent and landing at the nearest suitable airport. Informing ATC is such cases is not necessary. As always, the mantra is – AVIATE, NAVIGATE & then COMMUNICATE. If the first two items take up your time, then you descend first & inform ATC later. Delaying descent even by a couple of minutes may make the difference between a successful landing and evacuation and complete loss of the aircraft. Once you’re in a descent, the next step is to find the cause of the fire. Aircrafts have smoke detectors installed in specific locations so that the exact location of the fire can be known. The smoke warning is displayed on the ECAM/EICAS i.e. the display in front of pilots. If the location of the fire is visible, for e.g. in the lavatory, then the flight attendants are trained to use the fire extinguishers to extinguish the fire. The circuit breakers for the appropriate area can be pulled. If the location in question has automatic discharge bottles, they should be activated to extinguish the fire. IF there is a hidden fire, i.e. its location is not known, then it is a major problem. First off, they cannot be extinguished directly. And the time delay may allow the fire to take hold and do considerable damage to the aircraft. In such a situation, descend as fast as possible.

The pilots of MS804 correctly followed procedures as far as a fire was concerned. But due to conflicting accounts of the flight path taken by the aircraft and the authorities’ reluctance to confirm the same, I would refrain from speculating any more.